Disappearing Earth

by Julia Phillips

paperback, 272 pages

Published April 7, 2020 by Vintage.

ISBN:: 978-0-525-43622-5

(15 reviews)

One August afternoon, two sisters—Sophia, eight, and Alyona, eleven—go missing from a beach on the far-flung Kamchatka Peninsula in northeastern Russia. Taking us through the year that follows, Disappearing Earth enters the lives of women and girls in this tightly knit community who are connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty—open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, dense forests, the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska—and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused. In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, Julia Phillips’s powerful novel brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before.

7 editions

pithypants reviewed Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

Review of 'Disappearing Earth' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I really appreciated the sense of place in this novel, and I'm a fan of books that read like intersecting short stories. That said, this one was a bit messy. As I think back through the characters, I'm not entirely sure what purpose they all served. This might be a product of having listened to it as an audiobook rather than reading it and absorbing all the names, or it may be that the author deliberately had an expansive cast to serve as distractions or red herrings.

Adrián Astur Álvarez reviewed Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

Review of 'Disappearing Earth' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Obviously I'm in the minority but I found this novel insufferable. I found the writing all over the place, I thought the "mystery" was poorly conceived, I thought the entire mid-section of the novel meandering (in a bad way) and frankly undeveloped. I'm glad this author is getting so much acclaim for her book but personally I felt it needed more work. A fragmented novel themed around violence against women in a (soooorta) interesting setting could be very interesting but what is here felt so dull. What was added to the conversation with this novel? Kamchatka? No thanks. For fans of this who may be reading my review with consternation, take it with a grain of salt. I was so bored with the prose that I really checked out about halfway through and finished out of a sense of duty that is probably misplaced. I probably missed something great but …

GG reviewed Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

Review of 'Disappearing Earth' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

It’s been a long time since a book made me this angry. Based on strong reviews, I pushed myself through the slog of meandering stories and character studies with no clear connection to each other. I thought I could see how the book was moving towards a surprising and interesting conclusion, but NOPE. The ending is just as unsatisfying as the pages that preceded it. I do not understand why this book was so well-reviewed.